She has been gone three months. The coat is still on the hook by the door — the hook by the door, not in the closet. I have looked at this coat every day. I have not moved it.

This is not bravery and it is not denial. It is something else, the language is too tidy for. The coat is brown wool with a missing button on the second-from-bottom. When she put it on she would sigh, every time, at the missing button, and never replace it. She is the kind of person who notices and chooses not to fix.

I am not the kind of person who notices. I am the kind who fixes.

So the coat is a small instruction. Walk past it, do not touch the button, do not be the kind of person who would. Be the other kind, the kind who notices and lets be.

I have not become her. But I have begun, in small ways, to leave things. A book face-down. A glass at the sink. A pencil on the windowsill where it rolled. The apartment is messier in a particular, careful way. I am making rooms that she would still recognize.

When she comes back, if she comes back, the button will still be missing. I want her to see it and sigh.